French style has been long mythologised, but the reality (not Bretons, boucle and cigarettes, necessarily) is both harder to define, and far more alluring.
As the creative director of Louis Vuitton, Nicolas Ghèsquiere is a man better equipped than many to tackle that enigma. In his latest collection for the Parisian mega-maison, unveiled at the Musée d’Orsay yesterday, he proposed a kind of haute haphazardry: embellished slip dresses with super-long knitted scarves, sumptuous pyjamas not to be confined to the bedroom, neat little belted dresses with exaggerated sweetheart necklines. In not proposing a prescriptive, singular ideal of French style, he offered something better and more accurate: je ne sais quoi.
Lapping it all up was a mega-watt front row, as thrilling as the brilliant collection. Zendaya, Emma Stone, Ana de Armas and Sarah Paulson were all in attendance, as was the recently appointed Louis Vuitton Men’s Creative Director, Pharrell Williams, who will show his first collection for the house this summer.
The womenswear edition of Paris Fashion Week has served up some attention-grabbing debuts of its own – Harris Reed at Nina Ricci, and Ludovic de Saint Sernin at Ann Demeulemeester – but there was also space for a comeback on the schedule. After a three-year hiatus, Peter Dundas returned to show his latest Dundas collection at the Opera Garnier, in front an audience including Ciara and this season’s surprise front row fixture, Avril Lavigne.
Renowned for his high-octane glamour (and there was plenty of that, like the body-skimming, backless inky blue dress worn by Jessica Stam), the designer’s splash of nautical inspiration echoed the nostalgia seen throughout the week. “This collection is so special because many of my muses were family members,” said Dundas before the show, adding that they were “very involved in the navy. Several of my uncles were captains on big ships and my aunt was one of the world’s first nautical telegraphists. I also looked at Helmut Newton images as I love how powerful his women feel.”
